HOPE FOR THE BEST

  I went to a bon voyage party the other day for a lady in my coffee group. She splits her year between Kansas City and her native France. But this year is different; she isn’t coming back next year; or the next. Jackie is well into her 90’s. Simply said, people 92+ are old, they just are. Jackie has always been health conscious, exercise, diet, the whole scheme and she has been healthy all along. She is still astute; she does the math and checks the numbers. Long story short, sooner or later attrition catches up with everyone. You don’t have to get terribly sick, you can just wear out and Jackie is hedging against that day, either way. With dual citizenship, she does’t want to be in the United States when something necessary wears out. Any time is a good time but at 93 for sure, you hope for the best but plan for the worst. 

I didn’t know when I began, just where this was going. The socialized medicine versus health care for profit argument were not on my radar but it popped up there as I wrote. I realize that competition is a driving force for everything that can be monetized. Civilized progress depends on it. But it also leaves in its wake, a divided culture where privileged affluence is offset by unforgiving poverty. Affordability and access to health care are obvious issues that separate the Haves from the Have Nots. The leading cause of bankruptcy in America is health care and I am insulated from that fate by no more than an untimely mishap and a few weeks in ICU. 

There is an unholy alliance between health care and the medical insurance industries. Both are profit driven even though both claim their first concern is patient care. Stockholders, administrators and medical staff care far more about their own finances than about faceless, nameless, strangers in need somewhere else. Jackie knows this without me making my case. Whenever her time comes it will come without a $1,000 charge for bandaids or a $2,000 charge from a consultant who looked at her chart and nodded his head. No one in her family will be leveraged into paying her outstanding debt. I wish I could say the same for me.